Novel question of the week: just who is l’autre president?

Those in the know will be well aware that the French press – unlike, say, the UK media – is a little more circumspect when it comes to delving into the private lives of its politicians.

Which is probably why a new book from Le Figaro journalist Eric Zemmour has died a death in Parisian circles.

Zemmour published a well-received biography of French President Jacques Chirac two years ago, so his political commentary skills are in no doubt – as testified to by British journalist and Paris correspondent for the Independent on Sunday, John Lichfield, among others.

So why the failure of this particular oeuvre? Well, the novel L’Autre concerns itself with the tale of a fictional politician – François Marsac – who ruthlessly takes over the former Gaullist party, avails himself of dodgily acquired cash to back his ascent to political greatness, sleeps with anything that moves – behind his wife’s back, naturally – and, guess what, winds up as president of France.

Ring any bells?

By all accounts, the novel is a thinly disguised account of Chirac’s career. Actually, perhaps ‘thinly disguised’ is being too generous, as Zemmour refers in his work of fiction to Chirac’s well-known nickname, revealed by the real president’s chauffeur in another book four years ago and universally used by his entourage and girlfriends.

‘Twenty minutes, shower included’ is the moniker of both Marsac and Chirac.

Given the French privacy laws and the twitchiness of the Paris press, however, it’s little wonder that L’Autre was not even reviewed by Zemmour’s own newspaper.

While we’re on the subject of books: like the sound of ‘a classic struggle between good and evil in a contemporary setting’? No, that’s not a reference to Neil Kinnock’s attempt at reforming the EU – it’s actually the premise for a new novel by Malcolm Colling, an official in the European Commission’s transport and energy DG.

The 43-year-old Brit has been in Brussels for 20 years, all spent working for the European Commission, and has launched his novel, A Matter of Darkness, on an unsuspecting world.

Colling describes his opus as ‘a political thriller set in Washington and London, where yesterday’s politics and today’s technology come together to make tomorrow’s final revolution’.

Ambitious stuff, but EN is intrigued to find that a hard-working Commission official and father of two can find the time to pen a novel. Then again, there’s an awful lot of ‘bridge days’ in 20 years…

There is something splendidly parochial about the state-aid investigation launched last week by the European Commission’s competition department into JC Decaux, a French advertising company. The question …